Leaders and led and a special bond
As efforts to reach a settlement with the H.C. Frick Coal and Coke on union recognition stalled out, a group of local miners requested a meeting with the president of the United States.
The miners wanted to explain to none other than Franklin Roosevelt their opposition to returning to work without first having secured a vote on union representation. The miners were stalwarts of the United Mine Workers of America.
Roosevelt, at the height of his popularity in 1933, granted their request. The miners left Uniontown in the early morning for a 1 p.m. meeting at the White House.
The 30-minute gathering over, the group of eight miners returned home that very day.
What a stunning occurrence: Ordinary working men sitting down, conferring, with the leader of the country. And it just wasn’t for show. Within days, administration officials were in town arranging for a vote on the union question.
Is there any wonder why Roosevelt was so popular with working stiffs for so long, both here and across the country?
Perhaps President Joe Biden can steal a trick or two from FDR as he tries to navigate back into the good graces of organized labor, following the settlement of a rail contract which many union workers found distasteful and which may have shaken organized labor’s faith in “the most pro-union president in history.”
Or maybe he just needs to take pen in hand and sign an executive order guaranteeing the rank-and-file seven paid sick days.
The recent, short-circuited railroad contract voted on by Congress and signed by the president provides for one day of paid sick leave. Many in the unions representing rail workers opposed the contract on the grounds that they and their union brothers and sisters needed, and deserved, more than one day off for health-related reasons, such as doctor’s appointments or to nurse a cold.
It’s not uncommon for rail workers to spend days on the road. A shortage of workers, the result of the downsizing of crews by the railroad companies themselves, exacerbates the problem of reconciling a busy work schedule with time off to attend to personal matters.
Coolidge-era rail legislation gives the president broad authority to shape the contractual arrangements between railroad management and labor. In 2015, President Obama, under pressure from companies, flinched when it came to granting railway workers expanded sick leave, according to Steven Greenhouse of the Century Foundation writing in The New Republic.
President Biden should reverse the Obama decision and sign a new executive order, Greenhouse says. “Biden owes” train crews “that much. Biden campaigned in 2020 in support of paid sick leave.” The issue helped to underpin union support for the Democratic candidate for president.
Greenhouse said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg could also use his statutory authority to declare the railroads’ “strict attendance policies [have so] exhausted the industry’s [already] overstretched workforce” that seven days’ sick leave is in the national interest.
“That’s worth a try, too,” Greenhouse writes.
The president should sign the executive order and more, according to Rosemary Feurer, a labor historian at Northern Illinois University.
In an email, Feurer told me the administration should aggressively pursue more money from Congress for the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB faces a backlog of cases, many “egregious,” requiring more staff, she said.
Biden should also say how truly sorry he is about his role in bringing about the less than stellar rail deal.
As unlikely as that is, the president might usefully adopt another Feurer suggestion — that he employ his bully pulpit to vent over the “greed” of railroad executives. Since 2010, the nation’s rail carriers have spent $196 billion on stock buy backs and dividends.
Finally, Feurer said, Biden should emulate FDR by inviting rail workers to notify the White House about “abuses” they incur at the hands of management. These would then be followed up at White House press briefings.
This “renewal” of “the special direct line to the White House” pioneered by his illustrious predecessor would serve both the president’s interest as well as that of workers, Feurer said.
In the professor’s formulation: Workers must come to know that their health and welfare means more to the president than that the trains run on time.
Richard Robbins is the author, most recently of, Troubled Times: The Struggle for Wages, Recognition and Power in the Age of Coal and Coke. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.